Alex Zhang (2021) while reiterating the historical practice of the ancient Greek electoral mechanism: ostracism, commented:
“In the world’s first democracy, Athenians assembled once a year to write down on pottery shards, ostraka, names of prominent figures they wished to exile from their political community.” (Alex Zhang, 2021, p. 235).
Ostracism in ancient Greece was a political institution. It came into being in Athens in the Sixth Century, B.C. (Sumner, 1961, p. 37).
According to Howard C. Anawalt (1986) of the University of Santa Clara in his Article entitled: Ostracism and the Law of Defamation, it has been posited that:
“It (ostracism) appears to have been a means of curbing political power of certain men who achieved prominence, hence power, in the Athenian democracy. The mechanism was simple. Each year the Athenian citizens would meet to determine if anyone should be ostracized. If they determined that an ostracism should be held, they would meet again six weeks later and cast their votes inscribed on potsherds. If there was a vote of at least 6000 (out of a population of approximately 40,000 Athenian citizens), the individual who was named on the largest number of potsherds would be required to leave Attica for 10 years. He was permitted to keep his property. No crime or specific malfeasance had to be established in order to ostracize a person.”
Law of Defamation:
One’s reputation can be viewed as a sort of “alter ego.” (Prosser and Keeton, 1984)
In clarifying this legal position, Anawalt (1986) enunciated that:
“From its inception, the law of defamation has been strictly concerned with the issue of reputation. This is underscored by the requirement that a defamatory remark must be heard by someone else other than the person defamed if there is to be a case in defamation. (Prosser and Keeton on Torts (fifth edition), 1984, pp. 797-799).
In illustrating the practice of discerning defamatory practices, Anawalt (1986) expresses:
“People may act upon your reputation even when they have no personal knowledge of you or your actions. Thus, it is one thing if a friend begins to refuse to play a game with you because he believes you cheat; it is quite another if people begin to decline to play with you because they have heard that you are a “cheater.” In the latter situation you have acquired a bad reputation as a player. Reputation is a very delicate thing; and powerful.”
Interpreting legal remedies for defamatory Ostracism:
While placing reliance upon the legal remedies expounded by the late Professor Howard Anawalt, it can be easily assimilated that:
“The modern law of defamation is strictly concerned with reputation. If someone says to your face, “I know you stole that money; you embezzled it,” you have no case in defamation, unless someone else overhears the remark. If a third person does overhear this accusation, then you have a defamation claim. A defamation suit is intended to provide a remedy for the harm, namely the shunning or avoidance that a harmful remark might cause. Thus, it is a specific legal remedy for ostracism.”
The spectrum of Political Ostracism:
In finding agreement with the views of Aristotle which have been reiterated by Alex Zhang (2021) in his research article titled: Ostracism and Democracy, which has been published in the NEW YORK UNIVERSITY LAW REVIEW, the Aristotelian view upholds that:
“Democratic states have instituted ostracism for this reason: they are considered to promote equality as the most important goal. As a result, they would ostracize and banish from their government, for a fixed duration, those perceived to possess excessive power due to their wealth, popularity, or other forms of political strength.”
Consecutively, it would be worthy to explore as to whether ostracism was the antithesis to Polarisation.
Polarisation:
According to the views of MacDowell describing the political practices of ostracism, which have been reproduced in the Oxford classical dictionary/edited by Simon Homblower and Anthony Spawforth—3rd ed (1999) :
“Ostracism could also depolarize, by decisively rejecting a set of policy outcomes in a polity where public opinions are scattered on the two extremes of an ideological spectrum. This aspect of ostracism resembles but is not fully equivalent to a general election, in which voters select policy bundles to empower.”
Summing up:
Therefore, in conclusion, the law of defamation is specifically designed to protect reputation. (Anawalt, 1986)
“For example, defamation law does not protect one from the ostracism that is entailed by being actually involved in radical left-wing politics. Nor does defamation law provide much protection to individuals who are excluded because of their personal quirks, since most of these cannot be said to have a direct bearing of one’s performance of a business or profession...Finally, in the case where one is ostracized for being a political or social “oddball” there seems to be no legal remedy at all.” (Anawalt, 1986, p. 336 )
“In general, the legal system places a high value on two items: democratic determination of basic public policy and fair procedures in the determination of individual rights. The aspect of the legal system that has been described is weak on both these points. On the one hand, the incomplete system of protecting reputations through defamation law seems to foster an unarticulated public policy that drifts in accordance with the preferences of individuals who have a great deal of personal or institutional power. On the other hand, from the perspective of the individual, the described system tolerates situations in which individual efforts and hopes are crushed by powerful social attitudes with little chance of redress.” (Anawalt, 1986, p. 336).
The writer is a Doctoral Researcher working under the Alliance of European Universities and has presented his research works at various Academic Conferences
